In the Jain
conception, the world has neither beginning in time nor any end. The world and the Jain
Church exist eternally. The Jains
liken time to a wheel with twelve spokes. The Wheel is going round and round since time began and will
go on doing so for all time. At any moment half the wheel is descending. The descending half of the
wheel is called Avasarpini,
and the ascending
half is called Utsarpini.
We are living in the Avasarpini
half or the descending half of the Time Wheel when the human life and manners are becoming worse year
by year. Each of these halves is divided in to Aras
(spokes) or Ages. The Aras
in the Avasarpini
are the following:

Name of the Age Duration

1.
Susama Susama
Four crorecroreSagaropama
year

2.
Susama
Three crore croreSagaropama years

3.
Susama Dusama
Two crore croreSagaropama years

4.
Dusama susama
One crore croreSagaropama years

less 42,000 ordinary years

5.
Dusama
21,000 ordinary years

6.
Dusama Dusama
21,000 ordinary years.

Sagaropama or "comparable
to ocean" is a number too large to express in words.

The same Ages occur in the Utsarpini
period but in the reverse order.

In the first Age, in the Susama
susama Age, man lived Three palyas
or palyopamas
a long period not to be expressed in a definite number of years (one crore-crone palyas make one "comparable
to ocean years). The Nirvana
of Rishabha the first Tirthankara
occurred 3 years and 8 1/2 months before the end of the third Age. The other 23 Tirthankara
were born in the fourth age. Mahavira the last of the Tirthankara
died 3 years and 8 1/2 months before the beginning of the fifth age which began in 527 BC We are thus
living in the fifth, that is, the Dusama Age.

The mythical history of Jainism starts from a period near about the end
of the third Age, i.e., the SusamaDusama Age.
In this period the first of the sixty-three supermen of the Jain
mythology, Rishabhanatha, appeared. The other sixty-two supermen appeared in the fourth, i.e., Dusama-susama
Age. The Svetambaras
call these supermen Shalakapursha,
while the Digambaras
call them Lakshana-purusha.1
Mahavira was the last of the sixty-three supermen.

Both the Svetambaras
and the Digambaras
have written a number of works giving the lives2 of these sixty-three persons. One of the most famous
of these works is the Trishashti-
shalakapurusha-
charitra by Hemachandra.
Generally speaking, there is not much difference in the versions of the lives given by the two sects.
In fact the notable differences occur in the case of the two Tirthankara
Malli and Mahavira only. In all other cases the two sects are in agreement about the mythology of their
religion.

The sixty-three supermen
were the following:

Shvetambara
names
Digambara
names

Thirhankaras
Tirthankara
24

CakravartinsCakravartins
12

BaladevasBaladevas
09

VasudevasNrayanas
09

PrativasudevasPratinarayanas
09

------
63

In addition to these sixty-three supermen there were some kulagaras
or legislators. They all arrived in the third Age. The first Tirthankara
Rishabha was also the last of the kulagaras.
The kulagaras
were the persons who first introduced punishment in the world. These, however, consisted in not more
than admonition, warning and reprimands hakkara,
makkara and dhikkara.3
A kulagara was
something like Manu,
the legislator of the Hindus.

Among the Baladevas and Vasudevas, the most interesting are Balaram and
Krishna (Kanha in Prakrit). They appeared at the time of Nemi, the 22nd Tirthankara.
In fact Krishna was Nemi's cousin, We get here the Jain
version of the Mahabharat The Story of the Kauravas and Pandavas and the descendants of Krishna and Balaram
is described. The Kauravas and Pandavas are converted to the Jain
religions. Finally the Pandavas also become ascetics and like Nemi, attain Nirvana.4
One interesting point is that the main battle here is not the one described in the Hindu Mahabharat.
Krishna, the Vasudeva, fights a battle with Jarasandha, the Prativasudeva, and kills him. This is the
main battle in the Jain
version. In this battle between Krishna and Jarasandha, the Pandavas take the side of Jarasandha. In
fact, the main story in this Jain
version is the life of Krishna, and this is nearly the same here as given in the Bhagavati
Purana of the Hindus. Even otherwise the Krishna is the only Vasudeva who plays some part in the Jain
canonical works- Antakriddasah
and JnatadharmaKatha.

The Jain
version of the Ramyan is given in Padmacaritras
or Padma - Puranas.
Padma is actually
the Jain name
of Ram and his story in the Jain
version differs in many particulars from that of Valmiki.

Hemachandra
in this Trishashti-shalakapurusha-
charitra gives
the legend of Ram in detail. According to him, Dasharath, king of Saketa had four queens: Aparajita,
Sumitra, Suprabha ad Kaikeyi. These four queens had four sons. Aparajita's son was Padma, and he became
known by the same name of Ram also. Sumitra's son was Narayana: he became to be known by another name,
Lakshmana. Kaikeyi's son was Bharata and Suprabha's son was Shatrughna.

Sita was the daughter of Janak. She had a twin brother Bhamandala who was
kidnapped while still an infant. Once Janak was attacked by barbarians. Ram was sent to help Janak,
and he easily repulsed the enemies. Janak was delighted and wanted Ram to marry his daughter Sita.

Dasharath had married Kaikeyi in a svayanvara festival where she had selected
him as her husband out of the many kings who had attended the festival. The other kings who were rejected
attacked Dasharath. In the battle that ensued, Kaikeyi had acted as the charioteer of Dasharath. She
did her job so skillfully that Dasharath had promised her any boon that she desired. She had said that
she would ask for her boon on a suitable occasion.

When Dasharath became old he wanted to abdicate and become a beggar. When
Kaikeyi heard this she demanded her boon, and this was that her son Bharata should take over the kingdom
as Dasharath's successor. Ram readily agreed to this proposal but said that if he stayed on in the capital,
Bharata would not accept the throne. He therefore thought that he should leave the capital and live in
the forest. Sita and Lakshmana accompanied him. The rest of the legend is more or less the same as in
Valmiki's Ramyan There is, however, an important difference. It is Lakshmana and not Ram who actually
kills Ravana. In the Jain
system therefore it is Lakshman who is Vasudeva, Ram is Baladev, and Ravana is Prativasudeva.

There is another and perhaps an older version of the Jain
Ramyan. This version is given in the 14th Chapter of Sanghadasa'a Vasudevahindi and also in the Uttarapurana
of Gunabhadracarya. This version is not popular and is in fact not known to the Svetambaras
at all. The story in brief is as follows: Dasharath was a king of Varanasi. Ram was his son by his queen
Subala, and Lakshman by Kaikeyi. Sita was born to Mandodari, wife of Ravana, but since there was a prophecy
that she would be the cause of her father's death, Ravana had sent her through a servant to be buried
alive in Mithila. She was accidentally discovered by the king Janak when was plowing the field, and brought
up as his daughter. When Sita grew up, Janak performed a yajna
where Ram and lakshman were invited. Janak was impressed by Ram's personality and he gave his daughter
Sita to him in marriage. Ravana had not been invited to this yajna,
and when he heard that Sita was a beautiful girl, he decided to abduct her. There is no mention in this
version of the Ramyan of the exile of Ram. Ravana in fact abducts Sita from Citrakuta near Varanasi.
Ram recovers her by killing Ravana in Lanka. Therefore Ram and Lakshman come home and rule over their
kingdom.

All the Chakravartins
have more or less similar careers. Their lives are spent in obtaining the fourteen imperial crown treasures
or jewels. After long reigns, they perform the act of purging known as apurva-karma
obtain kevala
knowledge and enter Nirvana.
The first of the Chakravartins
was Bharata, son of the first Tirthankara
Rishabha.

Rishabha's name occurs in the Hindu Visnu-purana
and Bhagavat Purana
also. It is stated there that the emperor Rishabha handed over his empire to his son Bharata and went
to the forest where he practiced severe penance and died. He was nude at the time of his death. (This
suggests that the Purana story might have come originally from the Jain
sources) From the time Rishabha gave away his empire to his son Bharatta, they started calling this country
Bharata- Varsa. Formerly this country was called Himavarsa.
Name of no other Tirthankara
is mentioned in the Hindu religious literature.

The detailed lives of the twenty four Tirthankara
were given in the various Caritras
and Puranas written
in the later part of the first millennium AD the earlier books such as the KelpSutra of the
Svetambaras give
little details about most of them. In fact the Kalpa Sutra
gives some particulars only about the lives of Parshva, Arishtanemi and Rishabha in a stereotyped manner.
It gives the life of Mahavira in some detail, and so far as the other twenty Tirthankara
were concerned, mentions only the periods when they appeared.

There is some uniformity in the lives of the Tirthankaras.
All of them were born of Kshatriya mothers and lived princely lives before they renounced the world, and
nearly all of them attained Nirvana
in the Sammeta mountain (Parasnatha) in Bihar. There were only four exceptions in regard to the place
of Nirvana.
The place of Nirvana
of the following four Tirthankaras
were as below:

1. Rishabha in Kailasa

12. Vasupujja in Champa

22. Arishtanemi on the Girnar Hills

24. Mahavira in Pava

The twenty-third Tirthankara
Parshvanatha is said to have died 250 years before Mahavira, while Parshva's predecessor Arishtanemi is
said to have died 84,000 years before Mahavira's Nirvana.
Naminatha died 5,00,000 years before Arishtanemi and Munisuvrata 1,00,000 year before Naminatha. The
intervals go on lengthening until they reach astronomical periods.

It thus goes without saying that all the Tirthankaras,
except Parshva and Mahavira are mythical figures. We thus need not discuss their lives given in the various
Puranas and Charitras. It will, however, be clear from what has been stated above that the Jains
have a philosophy of history (i.e. the theory of the wheel of time) and this is distinct from the philosophy
of history of any other people. Also the Jains
throughout the last fifteen hundred years or so, have taken great delight in writings about the history
of their Church up to Mahavira. In fact the Digambaras
have practically ignored the history of their church after Mahavira. Except for some pattavalis,
which gives the names of their successive Patriarchs, the Digambaras
section of the Church has no other history after Mahavira. For Jain
sources of the history of the Church after Mahavira we have therefore to depend on the Svetambaras works
only.